SUDDENLY, more people in New York are watching TV during the day and early evening – suggesting that more viewers are out of work and sitting home in front of the tube.

The latest rating survey of local TV – called the February sweeps – found this perhaps unhappy trend in TV habits.

Viewership was up 7 percent from noon to 4 p.m. and 4 percent from 9 a.m. to noon, compared to a year ago.

Nothing definitive about the employment situation can be drawn from these numbers alone. But it is significant that – with heavy layoffs in recent months in tech-based industries based in New York – a lot more people are watching TV during the hours when most are still at work.

For instance, at 9 a.m., the revamped “Live with Regis & Kelly” and new co-host Kelly Ripa was up a whopping 33 percent over February last year (with then-co-host Kathie Lee Gifford).

And the third hour of the “Today” show (9-10 a.m.) on Ch. 4 was up 34 percent over last year’s “Later Today,” while “Maury Povich,” which was up at 10 a.m. on Ch. 11, finishing just behind “Rosie O’Donnell” on Ch. 7.

But it’s a different story for the nighttime newscasts, which stuck to recent trends victory-wise, but experienced across-the-board viewership losses.

Ch. 4 once again won the 11 p.m. news race with a 9.7 (673,000 households) – but that’s an 11 percent decrease from last year’s numbers. And ratings for Ch. 7, which will finish second at 11 p.m., were down about 20 percent from last year.

The news was extra-dreadful for Ch. 2’s 11 p.m. broadcast, which failed to capitalize on CBS’s “Survivor” coverage, notching a 4.2 (291,000 HHs) – its worst-ever February sweeps performance and a dropoff of 25 percent from last year.

Ch. 5 once again won the 10 p.m. news race with a 4.6 (319,000 HHs), followed by Ch. 9 (277,000 HHs) with the team of old/newcomer Rolland Smith and Brenda Blackmon. Ch. 11 finished a distant third (201,000 HHs).

Viewers also dropped out of perennial prime-access winners “Jeopardy!” and “Wheel of Fortune” – both of which won their timeslots on Ch. 7 (7-8 p.m.) but were down 10 percent and 17 percent, respectively, from February 2000.

But that doesn’t mean that viewers were tuning out during that timeslot. It appears they were turning elsewhere.